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Daily Archives: June 22, 2009

Basilica, though moving slowly, is attempting to address the various positions on Church and State that existed in the Reformation times. One thing that many people do not realize is just how radical the Roman Catholic position was regarding civil authority. They taught that all civil authority (every “human creature” as Unam Sanctam says) must submit to the bishop of Rome. In the event that this did not occur, the civil authority was considered to be null. Pius V declared this of Queen Elizabeth of England.

This position became more extreme as powerful monarchs left the Roman church. Assassinations were ordered and carried out (Henry of Navarre comes to mind, as well as the Gunpowder plot in England), and this was a consistent product of the Roman doctrine. It is important to note that this was not some accidental phenomena carried out by confused followers, but rather it was the Roman position on civil authority. Here is a quote from the Cardinal of Como, speaking on behalf of Gregory XIII’s papacy, written to the papal ambassador in Spain and meant to inspire Spanish hostilities against England:

Since that guilty woman (Elizabeth) … is the cause of so much injury to the Catholic faith… There is no doubt that whosoever sends her out of the world with the pious intention of doing God service, not only does not sin but gains merit, especially having regard to the sentence pronounced against her by Pius V of holy memory. And so, if those English gentlemen decide actually to undertake so glorious a work, your lordship can assure them that they do not commit any sin.

This is a breathtaking quote, but quite understandable within the Roman system. This also shows you something of how the Reformation actually occurred and definitely explains why King James thought that the militant Presbyterians were Romanizers.

This Gregory was the same pope who celebrated the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre by ordering a Te Deum to be sung in its commemoration.